Find Something Fun

I used to tease my friend Betty for saying that chickens were her favorite animal. 

I've heard of chicken on the Barbie, but this is ridiculous.

Now I understand where she was coming from.

I’m not saying chickens are my favorites. I’m not choosing. You know I have been crazy over a horse, a dog, I have loved our cats, and goats are more fun than a barrel of monkeys—most people wouldn’t know this without experiencing one or two.

Who wouldn't love that face?

I don’t know why I am talking about this. A blog is meant to inform. 

I inform you here in this lock-down depressing times, when people are plain worn-out with worry, receiving conflicting data, knowing there is an information war, and that our minds and bodies are being dinked with...

Find something you enjoy. 

I’ve recently taken a couple of trail walks, recording both the trail and my voice, and I enjoyed both. Can you believe it? I talk about the Law of Attraction and whatever else pops into my head. 

Why would I be so arrogant as to do such a thing? 

I’m not a big talker. Neither am I a big walker these days. Sorry. Justin Perry suggested I do a YouTube. If you get 1,000 “likes,” you can monetarize it, meaning have ads, but still be free for the watcher/listener. ( My internal knowingness said, “Jump in. See what happens. Be brave.”

People are interested in The Law of Attraction. I can say a few things about it, not to teach or to give any processes you ought to do, goals you ought to set, or meditations you ought to do. No ought's. Just plain talk. At least you can get a green forested trail walk out of it. And I was yearning for the trees. 

This videoing and putting the recording into the computer has been a learning curve for me. And I used to download pictures with ease. But not on my new computer., It kept locking me out until daughter dear turned off the S mode. Apparently, Microsoft wanted me to use only their software. I think I can get it now. This YouTube will be the unabridged version of walking and talking and hearing my breathing. Jewells Happy Trails #1. (No link yet.)

The first walk had no audio, so I redid it. No wonder I was puffing. I got lost on the mountain after the second walk as I was returning home. The road was clear going away from town, but coming back, there were logging roads, Y’s in the road, I didn’t see on the way down. I took the wrong Y and scraped the sides of my truck on blackberry bushes. 

Oh, back to chickens. They have given me a reprieve from the depression we had over losing my daughter’s lady. 

I bought three baby chicks on March 19, then three days old. They lived in a box under a heat lamp in the laundry room until recently when I moved the box outside. Next came a little movable yard on our green lawn. A freed animal is such fun; they run (It’s only a 4 x 4 sq. foot enclosure) and could fly over the three-foot-high fence if I didn’t cover it. Now part of their diet is mowing the lawn. 

Husband Dear and I had spent a week off and on flipping a tiny chicken house that I bought when we lived at an earlier home. Amazing that it survived the weather, and only the roof was rotted. My son-in-law and grandson carried it from where it had been stored including lifting it over the fence as it couldn't get through the gate, I freshly stained the sides, and repainted the trim. Home Depot cut the roof plywood for me, and I found asphalt shingles at Habitat for Humanity. Husband dear screwed the plywood in place and we shingled the roof.  It’s cute enough to live in the backyard. 

This property already had a chicken house and a coop attached to the backside of the Wayback (Our auxiliary building.) We had a secure (we thought) dog kennel attached to the coop for the two chickens who survived an earlier massacre. Sadly, about four nights ago, something got Red, one of the two hens. She must have been lying next to the fence, and something (a raccoon ??) killed her right through the fence.

Well, Blackie became free-range. The neat thing is, this somewhat standoffish street-smart chicken (she adopted us) has come into our back yard, visits the young chickens through their fence, lets me pet her, and has become the elegant lady she was meant to be. 

The picture above is of Blackie.

Although we had the house in our workspace for replacing the roof, Blackie climbed inside and laid two eggs. She is a resourceful chicken. Now I see why Betty was so attached to chickens. 

Here’s a quick change of subject:

Want a FREE blank book?

It won’t be completely blank. It has lined pages and quotes scattered throughout like seeds.

The quotes are not meant to stop your creative flow, but to give you a moment to pause and reflect or argue with, I don’t care.  

I like little booklets for my computer data, for I change passwords more often than Katy Perry changes clothes. The booklets with pretty covers are more fun than the simple spiral notebooks where I put junk stuff. 

Of course, you can write the great American novel there on those pages if you want.

I ordered two booklets about a week ago, for I wanted to know how they looked and make sure every page was lined. They have a matt finish cover. Glossy might be better. 

Here is a bird with an attitude.

Quote on the back cover:

"Once upon a time,

when women were birds,

there was the simple understanding

that to sing at dawn, and to sing at dusk

was to heal the world through joy.

The birds still remember what we have forgotten,

that the world is meant to be celebrated."

--Terry Tempest William

One person can have my extra booklet if they are willing to give me their email address and/or name and physical address so I can UPSP the book. If you win, I will need it for mailing.  

The young chicks will choose the winner. The first address pecked will be it.

The Judges

This is Saturday. I will do the drawing next Saturday, May 22, 2021

Contact: jewellshappytrails@gmail.com

A National Treasure

There is a photograph of a tree hanging in an elder’s apartment. To the casual observer, it is just an ordinary tree.

 

For the photographer, it is extraordinary. 

 

Long ago, this woman, the photographer, was a child in Germany as the Second World War broke out. The British government organized a rescue effort to save Jewish children under 17, waving visa requirements and placing them in a safe country in foster homes, farms, and orphanages. (1938-1940) Often these children were the only members of their families to survive. This was the Kindertransport.

 

This elder, the photographer of the tree, was around 8 years old when she was taken away from her family and moved to England. Outside the orphanage where she was placed grew a tree.

 

When she was grown, she revisited that orphanage and wondered if the tree was still there.

 

It was, and that is the photograph of the tree hanging in her apartment.

 

My daughter feared that when they were clearing out her effects, that inconsequential little photograph would be swept aside. Maybe it would be thrown away. It was old and not very alluring. And so, she wrote a note explaining its origin and pasted it to the frame. 

 

I don’t know what will happen to the photo. It was special to the lady, as many of our memories are unique to us and no one else. 

 

On Mother’s Day, May 9, this lady passed away. 

 

I have been angry, disheartened, and livid over the treatment of this woman—a National Treasure who survived the holocaust only to be killed in a “Retirement Community” where someone decides one’s fate.

 

This is a lesson to us that if we don’t take control of our own lives, someone else will.

 

This lady was a people-pleaser and took “authorities’ advice,” no wonder given her rearing.  It had helped her survive until now. 

 

I don’t know whether I will post this or not. I have gotten feedback on how righteous and wonderful Hospice is. Given the proper conditions, it can be, but it can also be misused.

 

I am writing this for I carry a deep sadness. I was under confidentiality, and many times in my brain, I wrote a letter. I wanted to tell her Rabbi. I will launch a complaint, although it’s a little late now. 

 

I wondered how much was a part of the lady’s life passage. I wondered how much she had set this up for herself. Could it be that she was guilty of having escaped the gas chambers? I don’t know. Those thoughts rattle in my brain. 

 

How much was my responsibility?

 

I just know that this rational mathematician went from lucid, laughing at puzzles, liking to see repetitive patterns in carpeting and plants outside to an invalid within the course of a week. She was a lady who enjoyed going to the roof and watching the sunset. During her school days, she was the star mathematician, and when she graduated at 16, they hired her to teach mathematics. In later life she had a theorem named after her. She was engaged to a doctor once, but when she talked about what she was doing, he seemed uninterested. “I can’t marry someone who shows no interest in my work,” she said.

 

I wonder if she was denied one of life’s spiritual moments. And that was to die under one’s own choices.

 

The caretaker who was with the woman 12 hours a day, four days a week for the past year pretty much knew her ups and downs.  The lady had some short-term memory loss, but in a moment of clarity she told her helper “I would rather have pain that be whacked out of my mind.”   However, she was whacked out of her mind.

 

Later on, she would forget she had any pain. Thus, the nurse’s assistant (not even a nurse) determined she could not decide for herself, and recommended Hospice. That way, they would have access to pain management. The patient, our photographer, had a Power of Attorney to decide for her. An in-house doctor, not her primary care physician, signed her to Hospice. The only family she had were nieces who lived in England. (They were from an older sister who was also on the Kindertransport, but who, in later life, killed herself.) The nieces loved their Aunt, but didn’t really understand what was going on.

The nurses said they had a meeting where they explained to the lady what was happening, but she did not understand. They asked her questions such as “Where do you plan to spend the rest of your life?” Well, she owned her condo. Why would they be asking such a personal question? She never consented or understood what was happening. 

 

“What happened to my bed,” she asked when they moved in a hospital bed. “My toilet is broken, and I can’t use it,” she said. No, a nurse taped a sign over it, “Broken,” so she would use the commode. Why? I ask. 

 

They limited her fluids because “It is better to die dry than wet.” Well, I consider not drinking to be torture.

 

She had a bladder infection that they would not treat because she was on Hospice, and they do no curative actions. So, they used morphine to numb the pain. She had a rash from sitting so long, and they treated it with powder, not an antibiotic that might have cured both the rash and the infection. 

 

Two cardinal rules were broken in this case. The first rule is that the patient be diagnosed with a terminal illness. The lady had MS, which is not a terminal. She had it for 30 years and had leg twitches and itches but was ambulatory.  The doctor said his wife died of MS. (With MS, doctor, not of MS.)

 

This lady stated emphatically that she was not dying and did not want to. 

 

The second rule is that the patient is given six-months to live. She was not.

 

Instead, she was given Morphine, Ativan, Methadone and Haldol (an antipsychotic drug used in hospitals to bring down a violent patient.)

 

Warning

“Concomitant use of benzodiazepines and opioids may result in profound sedation, respiratory depression, coma, and death.” 

She was not psychotic, but apparently, they give Ativan and Haldol as a matter of course with morphine. I don’t know what else she was given, whatever she was taking for her MS.

 

Throw all that in a system, and it could turn a person psychotic, or kill them.

 

When the lady was delusional, the caretaker said she was over medicated, and she had seen that before when she came home from the hospital after recovering from a fall, but that time she regained her brain.

 

A Power of Attorney held out for a while until the “Doctor” convinced her that Hospice was the best procedure.

 

And what happened to the caretaker? She was mentored that she was not handling her patient's decline well.